Notes from Digital Video Producers Meeting on September 20, 2002

Announcements:

• Our October meeting will be Wednesday, October 16 at 1:30 pm. Mark Rogers will demonstrate the use of a "green screen." Location will be announced. See the promotional video he created. It's on the IDG page. Click on "promotional video" (in the middle of the page).
  
  
• November meeting will be Wednesday, November 20 at 1:30 pm in NOA 5.318. Andy Greer will demonstrate the use of QT Broadcaster.
  
  
• December meeting will be Wednesday, December 18 at 1:30 pm. Location and topic will be announced.
  
  
• Web Video Guidelines are online. Everyone please have a look and send comments to Diane at dianeg@forum.utexas.edu
  
  
• The University has a Windows Media Server up and running. For accounts on that machine, contact Diane at dianeg@forum.utexas.edu

Megan Rucker gave a report on SIGGRAPH. SIGGRAPH is an international conference on web graphics and interactive media. Historically, SIGGRAPH has concentrated in interactive and 3-d graphics. A big change this year, according to Megan, was the addition of a track on Web graphics.

Quinn Stewart reported on the news about MPEG-4. It looks like an agreement has been reached by the big players, RealNetworks (Helix), Apple (QuickTime 6) and, to a certain extent, Microsoft. Microsoft is pushing its next generation technology, a codec called Corona. MPEG-4 will provide standards for use in creating video for the web. It features a smaller file size and improved video and audio with Advanced Audio Coding (AAC). We also talked about joining the ISMA and will think about this.

Discussion followed on various standards, the Web Video Guidelines, DSL vs cable modems, firewall troubles with streaming media, etc.